UK: GW Pharma doubles cannabis drug trials

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Simon Bowers

The Guardian

Friday 12 Apr 2002

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GW Pharmaceuticals, which holds the sole UK licence to develop
cannabis-based medicines, yesterday doubled the number of its clinical
trials to discover the medical benefits of the drug.

Four new trials of the firm's under the tongue spray will be carried out on
patients with spinal cord injuries, multiple sclerosis and nerve path
damage. GW hopes they will help prove the drugs can ease pain and help sleep.

This brings the number of patients involved in seven GW clinical trials to
about 600. Executive chairman Geoffrey Guy said he hoped to have a further
three clinical trials under way within the next two months.

One analyst expressed concern that the size of the seven existing trial
samples was small. But Mr Guy said he was confident it was large enough to
meet UK and European regulatory requirements, though perhaps not those of
the US regulator.

Mr Guy also commented for the first time on allegations that appeared in a
Sunday tabloid in February suggesting Neil Montgomery, a consultant to GW,
had dealt illegal recreational drugs and was himself a long-term drug user.

Mr Guy said the newspaper scandal was "very sad". Without commenting on the
substance of the allegation, he said: "He was very close to the vernacular
use of cannabis in an anthropological sense. If you are an anthropologist
and you study apes, I guess you have to go and live with them."

GW intends to wait until the truth of the allegations is emerges before it
comments further on Mr Montgomery's role.

Mr Montgomery has denied allegations of drug dealing, calling the News of
the World's tactics "a rather unpleasant attempt at entrapment".

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